Richard Garfield, the mad genius behind complex games like Magic: The Gathering and Netrunner, has seen renewed success in the last few years with family-oriented titles like the terrific monster-fest King of Tokyo and its sequel, King of New York. So it's perhaps not surprising that Garfield has gotten even lighter and more chaotic with his new board game, Greedy, Greedy Goblins, which ditches turns altogether.

Game details

You, as one of the titular goblins, are encouraged to delve deeply into the eight mines open at the start of every round. Gameplay is simple enough: pick a tile from the pool in the centre of the table and place it facedown on any one of the mines. Then pick up another tile and repeat. Meanwhile, everyone else at the table does the same simultaneously (and as quickly or slowly as they like), so mines steadily fill with hidden monsters, treasures, and explosives. When you wish to claim a mine, simply play one of your three goblin tokens on it; no one can add any further tiles. Once all mines are claimed, the tiles get flipped over and their effects are applied to whoever owns that mine. Gain enough gold coins across multiple rounds and you win.

Simple enough—except that the game positively encourages you to push your luck to (and past) the breaking point. Treasures score one or two gold coins each, but you can multiply your score through the use of dynamite. A mine with a single stick of dynamite in it scores double, while a mine with two sticks scores triple. But add a third stick and the whole mine explodes; the owner scores nothing from the mine's treasures, then loses an extra five coins for good measure.

This creates a dynamic where you might try to stuff a "good" mine with treasures, offloading monsters and excess dynamite onto other mines, with the goal of claiming the "good" mine before anyone else.

Another player might notice the gusto with which you are slamming tiles onto the mine just in front of you and, as you reach for your goblin token, could slip too much dynamite into the mine just before you claim it.

But you might know that this is what other players want to do, so you secretly fill the mine directly in front of you with horrible tiles while treasure-stuffing the two mines in front of your opponents.

Meanwhile, the player to your left might simply sit back and play no tiles at all, watching as other people move frantically to grab and place tiles, then simply try to snipe the best mines based on everyone else's body language and speed.

With its full complement of four players, then, Greedy, Greedy Goblins quickly devolves into metagame madness as players constantly try to guess what other players are doing.

The madness gets madder with minion tiles, which if scored in a mine let the owner draw a "minion card" from the deck. These cards each alter the rules in some way, often by changing the scoring of a particular item or mine. (For instance, the "Sapper" card can be played on a mine you own that has no dynamite; you then score the mine as though it has one dynamite—doubling all your earned coins.) Handled well, minion cards can lead to dramatically inflated scores; their use is a key strategic part of what is otherwise a fairly chaotic game.

Enlarge/ A player "faction" card, which grants a bonus to emeralds and serves double duty as a quick-reference scorecard.

In reviewing Greedy, Greedy Goblins, I played it both with kids and with my (adult) gaming group; it worked well with both as a fun, quick experience. (You can always raise or lower the total number of points needed to win in order to alter the number of rounds; each round takes only a few minutes, so this one's easy to tailor to the available time and to your interest level.)

The longer I play games, the less patience I have for significant downtime between turns (except perhaps in real brain-burning strategy titles, where more time to think is always welcome), so having something in the collection like Greedy, Greedy Goblins is always nice.

As an added bonus, Greedy, Greedy Goblins is unusual in that it's a simultaneous play game that doesn't necessarily reward speed or reflexes; you can succeed even when playing slowly. This makes it workable even with younger children or with gamers who don't like full-on "speed" titles.

The downside is just how chaotic Greedy, Greedy Goblins can be. Although "torch" tiles allow players to reveal a few other tiles in the mines, much of the information during the mining phase of the game remains hidden. And with four adults slapping down tiles while trying to outguess each other—and doing so without much to go on—the game can veer toward guesswork. Sure, you might have goals for each round, such as trying to grab rubies because a minion card provides a bonus, but this is no strategy title. Greedy, Greedy Goblins is instead an ever-changing tactical battle with enough chaos in the mix to disrupt any particular round's plan. If that doesn't sound like your kind of game—well, you won't enjoy this one.

As for components, the card artwork is solid, the box is nice, and the tiles are a thick and satisfying bakelite. The one disappointment is the goblin tokens, which are just simple coloured plastic circles without ornament or decoration. Some goblin figurines, high quality "geeples" (goblin meeples), or even simple stickers would have been welcome.

With a retail price of around £30 in the UK, this feels like a pricey pickup unless you know you love these types of games. In the US it can be found for nearer $30, which is more reasonable. If the price comes down a little it would be easy to recommend Greedy, Greedy Goblins both for families and as an opener/closer for gaming groups.